


Passing Acquaintances

by grenadine



Category: Ashes to Ashes, Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-19
Updated: 2010-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-21 11:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grenadine/pseuds/grenadine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene meets Alex in a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing Acquaintances

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after that thing with the guns and the undercover in the CI-verse.

_****_****_It's complicated_ , Alex says to her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. It's just too fucking complicated.

But it's hard to look a lie in the face, and so she looks away.

Because, really, the anger and the liquor have distilled the whole... _thing_ down to a few neat words stuck on a repeating loop in her mind:

Work.

Goren.

 _Christ._

Alex sniffs indelicately, and hooks the heel of her boot around the leg of the barstool. Squinting at the grimy fairy lights strung overhead, she wonders if there's a single bar in all of New York more smoke-stained than this one. The nicotine is practically dripping from the walls. Ex-smokers with weak wills and sad, pleading faces would pay to come in and lick 'em.

The thought of _sad, pleading faces_ makes her think of Bobby, which sets the angry fire off in her stomach again. Dammit, dammit, dammit. She wishes she didn't know exactly what the tipping point had been, when she lost completely the ability to keep everything that was wrong about her life shoved to the back of her mind, when drinking in the middle of the day started to sound like a reasonable life choice.

 _(He could have died undercover, and I wouldn't have known._   
_)_

She used to be so good at this.

She orders another drink.

As the bartender is sloshing bourbon into a glass, the door opens, letting in a thin beam of sickly winter sunlight. Alex looks down, not eager to be observed at this particular moment, so she hears rather than sees the man slide onto the barstool next to her.

Great.

She considers leaving without a word, but the thought of dealing with this particular morning's shitstorm back at the station holds in her seat, a rope around her waist. She tosses back her drink and turns her head to size up her unwelcome compatriot.

Blond. Blue eyes. Dark, dark black coat. Been pushed out of life's pickup truck and dragged by the ankles for a couple of blocks, but handsome, in a rangy kind of way. She is boldly staring now, and he smirks.

"Well, then," he says. "Glad I'm not the only depressed alkie in the city today."

Alex lifts an eyebrow at his accent. "You're far from home."

"Oh, well done, love, any other wildly obvious comments to make?"

She should be offended, but isn't, somehow. "I could do subtle," she says, shrugging, "but I'm on my fifteen minute break."

He extends a gloved hand. "Gene Hunt."

She takes it. "Eames. Alex."

"Copper?"

She smiles wryly. "Damn. My dark secret revealed."

"Takes one to know one."

"Dark secrets?"

"Police. You quite sure you are one, though?" he says, unsubtly looking up and down her frame. "Didn't know they let pixies on the force in America."

"Want to see my cuffs?"

He chuckles. "Softly, softly, love. We've only just met."

Alex falls silent, scattering the little card house of banter. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him look at her, just _looking_ , like he somehow knows exactly why she's here.

Like he _sympathizes_. _(You have absolutely no idea.)_

He is probably going to buy her a drink.

And sure enough: "Bourbon, straight. And one for the bird."

He kites out his coat to reach for his wallet and Alex catches a glimpse of his sidearm.

 _(Gun, that damn gun, I almost killed him, I was a second from-my-you didn't even call, it's not fine, it's-)_

When the bartender sets her glass down, she picks it up and contemplates it, swishing the liquid around in a circle. "I had a bird once," she says.

She hears him shift in his seat. "Tell me, are all women named Alex completely scrambled, or is it just my fantastic luck?"

Alex lifts an eyebrow. "Must not be that lucky, considering you're in a bar in the middle of the afternoon."

"Done some of my best work in pubs. And unless that stool is the designated _not-pub_ section of this establishment-" He draws a little square in the air around her with his hands, and Alex finds herself getting irritated.

"I am-" She draws herself up in her chair, coat rustling, "-having a bad day." She sinks back down, stares into her glass. "And don't think-I don't normally do this, you know."

"Oh, of course not."

"It's just sometimes things get. My partner, well, he-it's complicated," she finishes lamely.

Gene gives this more consideration then Alex thinks it's worth. "D'you trust him?" he finally asks.

"Yes," says Alex, so quickly that she doesn't have time to wonder why he asked.

He nods slowly. "Well."

She narrows her eyes at him.

"Not so complicated, then, is it?" He says it like a challenge, like a veiled threat, and Alex bristles inwardly, _well, look at you, mister problem solver from over-the-seas, but-_

But he's not really wrong.

Her partner. Christ, where is he? She has sudden flashes of him walking into traffic, his nose buried in a book, or drinking himself into a stupor, or-or going off on a suspect _(again)_. A thousand visions of disaster and the one thing they have in common is that she's not in any them. She's not there.

Her subconscious, she thinks ruefully, should try being a little less damned obvious. She shifts uncomfortably, trying to resist the urge to go running back to 1PP like some little _child_. To distract herself, she turns to Gene, intending a question, but he's already standing up, getting ready to leave.

Alex watches him drain his glass in one practiced motion. "One for the road?" she snarks.

He snorts. "Don't know what kind of coppers you've got over here, Eames, but," he slaps a few bills on the counter, "Gene Hunt does _not_ drink on the bloody job."

She almost laughs, props up her swimming head on her hand and looks at him, properly, as he adjusts the collar of his coat.

"Why _are_ you here?"

The corner of Gene's mouth twitches. "Looking in on someone for a friend."

He lays his hand on her shoulder in a motion that feels fleetingly like benediction, and then:

"Take care, little lady."

He is gone.

 


End file.
